The New York Knicks are your 2026 NBA champions, and their former head coach, Tom Thibodeau, isn’t feeling bitter seeing them reach the top of the mountain without him. Memphis Grizzlies big man Taj Gibson has played under Thibodeau in the past, and he shared the 68-year-old’s reaction to the Knicks’ triumph during an appearance on SiriusXM NBA Radio.
“I talked to Thibs yesterday, and the first thing we talked about was he didn’t have any kind of malice in his heart,” Gibson said. “He didn’t have any kind of hatred. He was so happy for the guys.
“He was just really so proud of the guys and what they accomplished, and he was just like, he said, he’s so happy that the fact that everything is going right for them,” Gibson continued. “He was like, ‘Man, that’s how it goes. You may have some good things going for you. May have to put up with some things that don’t go right for you, but I’m just proud of the guys.’
“And I was like, man, that’s just love,” Gibson added. “To have that humility… Knowing that you trained these players and have put so much into them, and know that they finally made that final leap to really take the top and go to the championship of New York City.”
The Knicks had fired Thibodeau in June 2025 despite him leading them to the Eastern Conference Finals for the first time in 25 years. Some questioned the decision, but the team winning it all under new head coach Mike Brown shows they made the right call.
That’s not to say Thibodeau didn’t do a lot of good for the Knicks. He spearheaded the franchise’s revival.
The Knicks had missed the playoffs for seven consecutive seasons when they hired Thibodeau in 2020. They had gone 21-45 in 2019-20, and there didn’t seem to be any light at the end of the tunnel.
Thibodeau, though, would stunningly lead the Knicks to the playoffs in his first season, as they went 41-31. He was deservedly named Coach of the Year for 2021, but they would lose in the first round to the Atlanta Hawks.
The Knicks then missed the playoffs in 2022, and you wondered if what happened the season prior was just an aberration. It wasn’t.
Thibodeau led the Knicks to the playoffs in 2023, 2024, and 2025. As mentioned earlier, he took them to the Eastern Conference Finals last year, where they lost to the Indiana Pacers in six games.
Despite all that Thibodeau had done, the Knicks felt they needed someone else if they were to get over the line. The players themselves were said to have raised some concerns, even though they strongly respected and admired him.
Thibodeau has always had his key players play big minutes, and it didn’t seem as if he was maximizing the talent on that roster. Knicks owner James Dolan also appeared to suggest that his unwillingness to evolve played a part in his firing.
Thibodeau reportedly felt betrayed by his firing. He also threw shade at Brown during the season, but looks to have gotten over all of that now.
It will be very interesting to see what Thibodeau, who went 226-174 in his five seasons with the Knicks, does next. There are a couple of head-coaching vacancies, but he hasn’t been strongly linked to any of them.
As for the Knicks, well, they won’t be looking for a new head coach anytime soon. There were questions asked about Brown during the regular season, but he did a phenomenal coaching job in the playoffs, as the Knicks posted a dominant 16-3 record. They went on an astonishing 13-game postgame win streak and then took down the San Antonio Spurs in five games in the NBA Finals.
